Paine hopes lower order fight can rub off on top batsmen

We saw how the pitch is playing and told ourselves we are going to dig deep, but unfortunately, myself, Travis and Shaun couldn't bat long as long as we should have'

"Shattered" Australia captain Tim Paine praised his lower order for giving India a scare in the first Test but demanded more from his leading batsmen ahead of the second conTest in Perth.

Some swashbuckling tail-end batting by Nathan Lyon, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc gave Virat Kohli's team a fright before India closed out a 31-run victory at Adelaide Oval at the end of Monday's extended middle fifth day session.

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"Our whole bowling attack, you can see how much it means to them playing for Australia, whether they've got the bat, ball or in the field, you can't question their commitment," Paine told reporters.

"They have a red-hot crack for every single ball. That's what we're building to, that's the style of cricket we want to play.

"They're obviously some of our more experienced players and I think the more they do that the more it will rub off on the rest of the group. I couldn't question any of those guys."

Paine's team head to the second of four Tests starting on Friday having become the first Australian side to lose a series-opening Test to India on home soil.

With both pace attacks putting in good performances, India's superior batting proved the difference, as man of the match Cheteshwar Pujara scored a decisive 123 in the first innings and 71 in the second to lay the platform for victory.

Travis Head top-scored for Australia with 72 and only Shaun Marsh, who compiled 60 in the second innings, joined him with a score higher than 50.

Most Australian batsmen were out playing loose shots, while question marks linger over Aaron Finch's place at the top of the order after he was bowled for a duck in the first innings and dismissed for 11 in the second.

With six wickets in the shed at the start of day five, Head fell quickly for 14 and Marsh was unable to build a big score to put more pressure on India.

Nursing a finger injury, Paine was also out slogging for 41 to hasten Australia's defeat.

"We saw how the pitch is playing and told ourselves we are going to dig deep, but unfortunately, myself, Travis and Shaun couldn't bat long as long as we should have," he said.

"But certainly if we can get through some tougher periods at the start, we want our top six batting when that was happening this afternoon.

"And that's the plan, and these Tests we haven't been able to quite get a set batter right the way through, or a number of batters right through. That's a goal of ours."

Paine found the 31-run defeat to India "hard to take" but said they will take inspiration from their fighting fifth-day effort in the opening Test and head to Perth with "real belief".

"It won't be any more difficult than this is. Every Test match is a huge challenge and we've expected this series to be an absolute arm-wrestle from the get go," Paine said at the post-match press conference.

"If you want to be a good team you have got to be hard to beat and today we were hard to beat, we made India work really hard, I think we made them work harder than they thought they were going to have to work.

"We have picked the same team for the first two Tests and we are going there (Perth) with real belief."

Australia batted more overs than India in this Test, yet ended up on the losing side. Paine said this was an area of improvement for the series ahead.

"Sitting back now it is a huge opportunity because we didn't cash in in the first innings and didn't have batters out there today when they were tiring. Had we taken either of those chances, we would have won this Test match, so it's pretty hard to take.

It's a really key element for us, to get lots of overs into them and I am sure India are thinking the same with us. They want to see our fast bowlers bowl a hell of a lot of overs."

"The batting conditions in first innings were not easy. It was hard to score. India bowled superbly throughout, built a lot of pressure on us and we couldn't quite get through those tough periods," Paine said at the post-match press conference.

"There were a number of reasons why we lost. I thought we could have cleaned them up on day one for 200-210 and we let that slip a little bit."

Paine was full of praise for the Australian bowling attack, talking up Nathan Lyon who picked eight wickets in the Test.

"You can't question those four guys' commitment they have a red-hot crack every ball. They are some of our more experienced players and the more they do that it is going to rub off on the rest.

"For majority of the Test, Starcy actually bowled really well. I saw a bit of stuff last night that people were pretty critical of him. But I think his economy rate for a lot of the Test was really good."

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